TVE, the Spanish national broadcaster has opened the submission period for composers to submit their songs for the upcoming 2019 Spanish Eurovision national selection.

Spain will be selecting its 2019 Eurovision act and entry via Operacion Triunfo as it did this year. This will be the fifth time the country will deliberate its Eurovision hopeful via the highly acclaimed talent show.

Last month TVE announced that all 16 OT 2018 hopefuls will be eligible to represent Spain at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.

The Spanish broadcaster is in full steam in its quest to search for the 2019 Spanish Eurovision entry. TVE will be searching for potential Eurovision entries via two different avenues:

• Public call for songs
• Special invitation to established composers.

TVE has published the rules and regulations for its upoming Eurovision national selection.

Public call for songs

Composers wishing to enter a song for the 2019 Spanish national final can submit their respective entries from 01-15 November 2018. 

Hereafter a special committe consisting of  five members representing OGAE Spain, RTVE Digital, AEV Spain and the Spanish music industry will be responsible to evaluate all submitted entries and shortlist them to 10 songs. The special committee will present the 10 shorlisted songs to TVE by 10 December 2018.

Special invitation to composers

TVE and Gestmusic will be extending a special invite to established composers and producers in the music industry to submit an entry for the forthcoming Spanish national final. A special committee formed by five members representing TVE, RTVE Digital and the Operacion Triunfo teachers. The submission period will run from 01-15 November. Hereafter the special committee will  be responsible to select 10 entries from all the submitted songs.

20 Songs in contention- online public voting

The 20 selected entries ( 10 via public submission/10 via invitation) will be assigned to the OT 2018 participants, who will then record their respective songs. Hereafter TVE will publish the 20 entries on its official website and open online voting enabling the visitors to vote for their favourite entries. The online voting will run for 2 weeks.

The three most voted songs from the online voting will proceed to the 2019 Spanish national final. Whilst a special five member committe representing TVE, TVE Digital and Operacion Triunfo 2018 teachers will select a further 7 entries from the remaining 17 songs.

Hence TVE plans to have a national final with circa 10 entries battling for the golden ticket to Israel. The exact date of the Spanish national final is yet to be confirmed, one thing we know for sure is that Spain will be selecting their Eurovision representative and song for Tel Aviv next January.

National final to determine entry and act for Tel Aviv

TVE is set to organize a televised show in order to select the 2019 Spanish entry and act in January 2019. During the national final all the participants will perform their respective potential Eurovision entries. The final delibeation will lie entirely in the hands of the Spanish audience who will determine the 2019 Spanish hopeful and entry via televoting/SMS/online voting.

If there is a tie between 2 candidates/ songs the Spanish audience will be invited again to vote for their favourite entry/candidate.

Spain in Eurovision

Spain joined the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 and has won the competition twice, with Massiel (1968) and Salome (1969). The Iberian nation has been marred with poor results in the competition in recent years.

In 2018 Spain selected its Eurovision act via Operacion Triunfo, Amaia & Alfred were crowned the winners of the Spanish national final and flew to Lisbon with their love ballad Tu cancion, achieving a 23rd place in the Grand Final.